Uber marshals crisis-response for Michigan shooting spree

Uber driver Jason Dalton, of ﻿Kalamazoo Township, Mich., is arraigned Monday via video. Dalton is charged with multiple counts of murder in a series of random shootings in western Michigan.
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Uber driver Jason Dalton, of ﻿Kalamazoo Township, Mich., is...

Uber has a history of public relations blunders. From driver vetting to surge pricing, from regulatory clashes to executive bluster, the ride-hailing company stirs up controversy and sometimes has tin-ear responses.

The list of bad press is long: Lawsuits over its safety claims, an Uber executive who suggested digging up dirt on journalists, price increases during the Sydney hostage crisis, declining to take responsibility for a fatal San Francisco accident, driver protests.

Now Uber’s name is linked with a shooting rampage in Kalamazoo, Mich. that has drawn national attention. Police say the crimes were committed by a 45-year-old Uber driver, Jason Brian Dalton, who repeatedly picked up passengers during the same evening he fatally shot six random strangers and wounded two others. Some of Dalton’s passengers on the fateful day reported to Uber, to 911 and on social media that he was driving erratically. About a third of headlines on the shooting include the word Uber, according to Quid Inc., which tracks news coverage.

Photo: Tasos Katopodis, Getty Images

People gather and pray at Center Point Church following a mass shooting on Feb. 21, 2016, in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

People gather and pray at Center Point Church following a mass...

The case has renewed attention to Uber’s background checks on drivers, and how it ensures passenger safety, including whether it should add a panic button to its app.

“When your brand is constantly in the news being associated with negativity — and worse, devastating crimes — it adds up,” said Melissa Agnes, president of crisis-management firm Agnes & Day. “At the very least, it gives people a subconscious negative association with the brand. At the worst, it can make people begin to wonder whether or not they’re safe when entering into a car with an Uber driver.”

Uber needs to be proactive, said Agnes and other crisis-management experts.

Law enforcement confirmed that Dalton had no criminal history, Sullivan said.

“No background check process would have flagged this,” he said, adding that Uber will not change its driver vetting, which includes checks at the local, county and federal level, he said. Critics say that since Uber’s checks do not include biometric identifiers like fingerprints and that drivers could use false names. Its checks go back seven years, compared with the adult-lifetime requirement given to taxi drivers.

Dalton was approved to drive on Jan. 25 and gave about 100 rides in his one month with Uber.

“The driver had a 4.73 rating (out of 5) and generally received very favorable feedback,” Sullivan said. “There were no red flags to anticipate something like this.”

Sullivan deferred to law enforcement for questions about the weekend timeline, including how Uber responded to Dalton’s passengers’ complaints. However, he said, while Uber will suspend drivers within minutes for allegations of violence, it waits to hear their response when they’re accused of poor driving. “We get a lot of complaints about bad driving; not all are fair or accurate,” he said. “It’s important to hear both sides.”

Uber does not allow guns in its cars, whether held by drivers or passengers, he said.

After an Uber driver in New Delhi allegedly raped a passenger, Uber added a panic button and more car-tracking features to its app in India. Will it do something similar here?

“In the United States, 911 is the panic button,” Sullivan said. “It’s the panic button that we want people to use, it’s the panic button that law enforcement wants people to use, and we don’t want to try to replace that.”

Photo: Quid.com

Quid.com, which analyzes news coverage, mapped articles about the Kalamazoo, Mich., shooting spree to show which topics stirred the most media interest. Each circle represents an article and similar articles are grouped together. Uber was a major theme of the coverage.

Quid.com, which analyzes news coverage, mapped articles about the...

However, Uber is now experimenting in Houston with using GPS data to help confirm rider feedback on drivers. That technology could become more broadly available.

“Uber did the textbook right thing” in its response so far, said Sam Singer, principal of Singer Associates, a go-to public relations firm for crisis management. “In the past they may have been inept, but in this tragedy they’re showing that they’ve matured as a company.”

Uber needs to continue being transparent and reassuring, said Lynn Upshaw, a lecturer in marketing at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and principal of Upshaw Marketing. “With a brand like Uber already facing regulatory challenges, having more clouds over its head means it should ramp up communications to reassure the public that everything humanly possible is done to vet the drivers,” he said.

Glenn Selig, strategist in chief at the Publicity Agency, which handles crisis management, had similar thoughts.

“This case cuts to the heart of what (critics) say about Uber, that it is usurping laws and compromising safety,” he said. “Uber must underscore to the public that safety of its customers is first and foremost.”

Jonathan Bernstein, principle of Bernstein Crisis Management, said he’d give Uber a C for its previous responses to problems. “They’ve tended to come off as arrogant,” he said. But this time, he sees the company stepping up.

“There are certain entities that automatically get named in stories because they’re big,” he said. “Anytime there’s a crime that they’re in any way connected to, their name gets thrown in; it doesn’t mean the crime is in any way their fault. A simple message of empathy for the victims and explaining their screening is all they can do.”

A member of Uber’s safety board said as much, responding to a question that Progressive Insurance — where Dalton also worked — hasn’t had to defend its screening process.

“It’s any corporation’s worst nightmare,” said Margaret Richardson, a member of Uber’s safety advisory board who was chief of staff and counselor to Attorney General Eric Holder. “In many ways (people) focus on Uber as a distraction from the availability of guns in the hands of people who perhaps shouldn’t be able to have such easy access to them.”